Grammy Awards Is Revamped: New Rules and Categories

April 7, 2011 (1:45 am) GMT

Starting next year, Grammy Awards will be more competitive as its 109 categories have been restructured by eliminating some and merging the others into new ones.

People at the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (NARAS) have decided to reduce the long-list categories of Grammy Awards. From 109 categories, around 52 awards were eliminated and some of them were combined into one to create 21 new fields.

This means that Grammys will offer more competitive battles for its frequent nominees like Lady GaGa, Eminem and Rihanna. Male and female artists will bump into each other more often because there are no more separate awards for best male and female vocal in the pop, country and R&B fields.

Some of the changes are; solo artists for each genre will simply compete for "solo performance", the "pop collaborations" will merge into "pop duos/groups" category, and "best rap solo and duo or group performance" are put together in "best rap performance." The rap/sung duet survived the cut, but the instrumental track categories were banished.

The new format includes new rules on entries and voting. Each category must have at least 40 artist entries. If a category receives between 25 and 39, only three recordings will receive nominations. If there are less, the category will not be presented. The category will be discontinued if there are fewer than 25 entries for three consecutive years.

"Every year, we diligently examine our awards structure to develop an overall guiding vision and ensure that it remains a balanced and viable process," The Recording Academy president Neil Portnow said. "After careful and extensive review and analysis of all categories and fields, it was objectively determined that our Grammy categories be restructured to the continued competition and prestige of the highest and only peer-recognized award in music."

"I think the positive side is we've taken a good, serious look at what we're doing," he added. "We contemporized it, we organized it and we visioned it in a way that will suit us going into the future. In other words, if you just continue business as usual, at some point, typically, you're going to hit some sort of a pothole in the road."